Advertising for lessons

Steph · Post by **Steph** » 09 Sep 2008, 09:36

Hi

Can anyone suggest good ways of advertising for piano lessons? What have you found to be most successful.

I am looking at different options - newspaper, flyers, online sites.

Steph

joseph · Post by **joseph** » 09 Sep 2008, 09:41

certainly flyers are the cheapest way, however, after newspaper advertising and a load of fly posting, i have received no pupils this way. I have 8 private pupils now, and without exception they have all come through word of mouth. The trouble is for me, that piano teachers in this area say stupid things like 'Oh Joseph is a fabulous pianist, but its well known that great pianists can't teach'. Excuse me? Does that imply that bad pianists CAN teach? I don't think so . . . .

sorry for my rant. Anyway, make it known that you are a piano teacher, and you will get a couple of pupils to start with. Hopefully then word of mouth will bring you more. Good luck, and don't worry if it is a slow process.

Openwood · Post by **Openwood** » 09 Sep 2008, 11:50

Does that imply that bad pianists CAN teach? I don't think so . . . .

Yeah, it's like those smug gits who take great pleasure in coming up and saying "Of course, they say those who can do and those who can't, teach". Yeah, that's really hilarious, thanks for that. Tell you what, have my Year 9 class last thing on a Friday and we'll see who's still feeling smug by the end of term.

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 09 Sep 2008, 16:07

Newsagent/shop windows; music shops often keep a list of teachers; www.musicteachers.co.uk; elsewhere on this site; Incorporated Society of Musicians (you need to be a member, but the way they've been treating you at your school, it might be a good idea anyway; parish/local magazines are a widespread cheap way of advertising; get flyers made and get the brats who deliver it to put some in the free newspaper for a few bob; and finally, tell your tuner - we always get asked for names of piano teachers.
Word of mouth works best, though.

Post by **Barrie Heaton** » 09 Sep 2008, 20:59

and when you type in piano teachers in google or with an area like "piano teachers in Maidstone" the UK Piano Page list of teachers come up first and its free quite a lot the teacher say they get more work from us than any other site

Barrie,

joseph · Post by **joseph** » 10 Sep 2008, 00:16

Openwood, that old Those who can, do, those who can't, teach should be changed to:

Those who can't teach, do, or at least try to but usually fail. I love it when I hear people say things like 'of course, teaching is the soft option. ..' and I think to myself, just go and teach for one day, and then tell me its the soft option! Class teaching is harder than individual teaching by nature of numbers, and individual teaching can be excruciating, because sometimes the child just refuses to do anything other than sit on the stool for half an hour and say nothing, do nothing, play nothing, and then bursts into tears before sneezing all over the piano and you!

cothse · Post by **cothse** » 30 Sep 2008, 13:39

Flyers are a good option for a startup. When doing them, cut in a row of flaps with your phone number on them that passersby can tear off; you'll get ten times the phone calls that way. If you can, try to also build a simple website or blog detailing your credentials, and include the url on the flyer flaps. Websites are convenient for mildly interested folks and tremendously effective at preselling.

Also try yahoo classifieds. I think it is free, and you'll come up in local search results. Here is the link:
http://classifieds.yahoo.com/

Here is another thing I found. It's a high traffic piano teachers directory.
http://www.privatelessons.com/

If you have any friends with blogs, ask if they could give you a shout out. Word of mouth is still the best way to get on the map.